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Accessibility Statement

Accessibility Statement for the Whittington Health NHS Trust website

This accessibility statement applies to this Whittington Health NHS Trust website at https://www.whittington.nhs.uk
Whittington Health NHS Trust is committed to producing a website and web resources that can be accessed by all users. We want as many people as possible to be able to use our website. Therefore, we're continuously working to make this site as accessible and usable as possible for all abilities and disabilities. This includes older audiences and those with visual, hearing, cognitive or motor impairments.
 
For example, that means you should be able to:
 
  • change colours, contrast levels and fonts using browser or device settings
  • zoom in up to 400% without the text spilling off the screen
  • navigate most of the website using a keyboard or speech recognition software
  • listen to most of the website using a screen reader (including the most recent versions of JAWS, NVDA and VoiceOver)

We’ve also made the website text as simple as possible to understand.

How accessible this website is

  • We try to make our website text simple to understand, by using plain English wherever appropriate.
  • We use subtitles for media content wherever possible.
  • We rarely use data tables in page text, preferring in-line text layouts responsive to various display sizes.

Not every Adobe PDF and Microsoft Word format document linked on this site is fully accessible to screen reader software. Given our available resources, we have made, and continue to make, these documents as accessible as we can.
 
In summary, in these documents:
 
  • properties such as language and title may be missing or inaccurate
  • there is not always a complete logical structure based on tags and headings
  • tables and lists may not always have headers or other elements identified in full
  • images may not always have text alternatives

Wherever possible, we avoid publishing documents in PDF format. Instead we replace this content with (or create new content as) structured web pages instead, based on HMTL and conforming to modern web accessibility standards.
 
We know some parts of this website are not fully accessible:
 
  • most older PDF documents are not fully accessible to screen reader software
  • some of our online forms are difficult to navigate using just a keyboard
  • text will not reflow in a single column when you change the size of the browser window
  • you cannot modify the line height or spacing of text
  • you cannot skip to the main content when using a screen reader

Feedback and contact information

We’re always looking to improve the accessibility of this website. If you find any problems not listed on this page or need information on this website in a different format like accessible PDF, large print, easy read, audio recording or braille, contact the Whittington Health NHS Trust Communications Team.
 

We’ll consider your request and get back to you in 28 days.

Enforcement procedure

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is responsible for enforcing the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018 (the ‘accessibility regulations’). If you’re not happy with how we respond to your complaint, contact the Equality Advisory and Support Service (EASS).

Technical information about this website's accessibility

Whittington Health NHS Trust is committed to making its website accessible, in accordance with the Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations 2018.

Compliance status

The website has been tested against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.2 AA standard.
 
This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.2 AA standard, due to the non-compliances and exemptions listed below.

Non-accessible content

The content listed below is non-accessible for the following reasons:

Non-compliance with the accessibility regulations

We are aware of the following issues with the PDF’s on the site including:
 
WCAG criteria lack of text alternative (1.1.1), use of colour (1.4.1), text contrast (1.4.3), keyboard accessibility (2.1.1), and section headings (2.4.10).
 
Some of our PDFs do not have accessible titles: we know PDFs and closed file formats are difficult to use for people with accessibility needs, so wherever possible we use open standards (such as CSV) and HTML pages instead. Where we find documents that are not accessible, we will either fix them, convert them to HTML pages, or remove them.
 
We are aware of the following issues within the links on our site:
 
  • some link text doesn't make sense when read on its own (for example 'click here')
  • on some pages there are multiple links with the same link text but different destinations
  • many older PDF files contain broken links which do not resolve - we do not intend to resolve these as it is a disproportionate burden for files which are no longer in active use

We scan the site weekly for broken links, and look to fix them as soon as they are identified.
 
Our Communications Team are working through the links which don't make sense on their own, and we aim to have fixed these by March 2025.

Issues with Images and Videos

We strive to make all of our content accessible. We are aware of the following issues with images and video on our site.
 
  • Video content uses automated closed captioning and transcripting, and this is often inaccurate. By March 2024 we will review these captions and ensure their accuracy manually.
  • Some of the images on our site are complex diagrams where suitable alt text is not possible. A list of these images is below. By March 2025 we intend to have reviewed all of these images, and where possible will have converted them to accessible format such as SVG, used a different visualisation method, built the visualisation in HTML5, or added detailed description text to the page

Some of our embedded videos may not have names that are readable by screen readers (WCAG 4.1.2).
 
Some of our older videos may not meet accessibility standards because they do not have captions. The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix videos published before 23 September 2020. We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.
 
Some images do not have a text alternative, so people using a screen reader cannot access the information. This fails WCAG 2.2 success criterion 1.1.1 (non-text content). We plan to add text alternatives for all images by Q3 2025. When we publish new content we’ll make sure our use of images meets accessibility standards.
 
Some pages and documents have a reading age higher than 16 (WCAG 3.1.5). We regularly review our written information to ensure everyone can understand it, but sometimes we have to publish information of a legal or clinical nature. Where possible, we link to additional information that is easier to read.

Other accessibility issues

We are aware some on page signposting menu’s do not have controls that clearly indicate when they are selected (WCAG 2.2 AA 2.4.11) We are working actively on fixing the occurrences found and plan on reviewing quarterly to resolve any further issues.
 
We are aware some on pages accordion does not change appearance when they are selected (WCAG 2.0 AA 2.4.7) We are working actively on fixing the occurrences found and plan on reviewing quarterly to resolve any further issues.
 
Some text does not sufficiently contrast with its background colour, so people with moderate visual impairments cannot read it. This fails WCAG 2.0 success criterion 1.4.3 (contrast (minimum)). We are working actively on fixing the occurrences found and plan on reviewing quarterly to resolve any further issues.
 
Some pages do not support reflow, so people with low vision cannot enlarge text on all web pages and read it in a single column without scrolling in more than one direction. This fails WCAG success criterion 1.4.10 (reflow). We have resolved the items identified - however we are aware that certain third-party code embeds may cause this, which is out of our control (such as social media embeds or NHS Jobs/Trac integration).

Issues with third party embedded content

Third party content which is embedded into our site may not fully conform to WCAG 2.1 AA. Embedded content we use comprises:
 

Content is not within the scope of the accessibility regulations

Issues with Technology

The vast majority of our website works correctly on any web technology.
 
For security reasons, we only support TLS 1.2 and higher security protocols, and this means that some older browsers will not show the site.
 
How our site looks and work is based on HTML5, and we test for and support the following browsers:
 

We also test in the Lynx browser to ensure that the site renders correctly for non-screen users.
 
You may experience unexpected behaviour in other browsers, although we use fully validated code which should work on any modern (HTML5) browser.
 
Internet Explorer no longer supported
Whittington Health NHS Trust no longer supports Internet Explorer, as this browser is now at the end of its lifecycle.

PDFs and other documents

The accessibility regulations do not require us to fix PDFs or other documents published before 23 September 2018 if they’re not essential to providing our services. For example, we do not plan to fix Acne Leaflet.
 
Any new PDFs or Word documents we publish will meet accessibility standards.

Live Video

We do not plan to add captions to live video streams because live video is exempt from meeting the accessibility regulations.

What we're doing to improve accessibility

Internal reviews are conducted on content published to this website and the design system components used to construct the site. The accessibility of this website will be reviewed on a quarterly basis and we will update this statement with any relevant changes.
 
Work is ongoing to:
 
  • Publish content in HTML format wherever possible, rather than as PDF or other formats.
  • Inform staff of the importance of accessibility, and guide them how to make their documents accessible.
  • Review and update existing published PDF documents to make them fully accessible, prioritised by frequency of public access.
  • Test newly-created documents for accessibility before they are published, and repair any issues - unless it is in the interest of our patients and staff to publish information before the standards can be met in full.

Preparation of this accessibility statement

This statement was first prepared on 25th May 2018.
It was last reviewed on 5th March 2025.
 
It will be next reviewed on 6th June 2025.

This website was last tested during January 2025.  Both manual and automated tests were carried out by the Whittington Health NHS Trust Web Team and our third party website developers. To test, we used the tools:
 

When deciding on a sample of pages to test, we chose based on:
  • our most popular pages
  • pages that gave an example of each template
  • pages that included images and video

Accessibility Statement update

Whittington Health NHS Trust is currently in the process of reviewing the accessibility of this website.
 
 The Accessibility Statement information on this page is also being reviewed and updated in conjunction with this.
 
Further information will appear here shortly.
5th March 2025
Last updated07 Mar 2025
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